Disaster mismanagement
UNION Defence Minister George Fernandes has contributed his bit to the unfolding story of the disaster which struck parts of Gujarat on Republic Day by stating that the final death toll may touch the one lakh mark. Will a few bodies more or less make any difference to the tragedy which visited the tremor-prone Bhuj region nearly a week ago?

Davos losing lustre
DAVOS, synonymous with the annual meetings of the elitist World Economic Forum, is on a slight decline. Even noisy protest by non-governmental organisations is not of any help in restoring to it its past glory. In a manner of speaking, it owes its loss of importance to its string of earlier successes. It was, and still is, in the forefront of the campaign for free trade and unfettered flow of capital.

Nightmare of Gujarat’s mega-quakeNature’s fury, man’s failingsby Inder MalhotraWHEN the country is trying to cope with the worst and the most devastating earthquake in half a century as best it can, it is hardly the time for finger pointing. Nor is this the purpose of what follows. Attention must focus unswervingly on immediate relief to and speedy rehabilitation of such victims of the catastrophe as have survived.

MIDDLE

Of shaking earth and souls in
slumberby K. Rajbir DeswalHAVING landed in the metropolis called the Babus’ Dilli from my home state about six months back, I had been longing to befriend or at least know each and every person who I was sharing my roof, floor, walls, stairs, corridors, travel-car lifts,
etc.

Bigger babies, bigger brainsTHE
heavier a baby is at birth, the bigger the brain power later in
life, new research suggests. UK scientists say birth weight may
have lasting effects on mental performance, influencing test
scores and even educational achievements all the way to early
adulthood.

OF
LIFE SUBLIME

When solutions become problemsby Acharya MahaprajnaI see on the one hand the enormous universe and on the other a minuscule man. The present-day thinking is inclined towards the enormous, the aggregate. All things are conceived on a large scale. But the problems of the gigantic universe are the same as those of the individual.

UNION Defence Minister George Fernandes has contributed his bit to the unfolding story of the disaster which struck parts of Gujarat on Republic Day by stating that the final death toll may touch the one lakh mark. Will a few bodies more or less make any difference to the tragedy which visited the tremor-prone Bhuj region nearly a week ago? Just because Mr Fernandes had made the ritual visit to the scene of devastation he had to make a statement which is irrelevant at this point of time. The question which he should have answered is whether his visit made any difference in terms of improving coordination between the various agencies which want to help the administration in the massive operation for extricating bodies and looking for survivors. The fact of the matter is that visits by VIPs to the scene of devastation inevitably add an element of chaos to the prevailing confusion at the official level in streamlining the relief and rescue operations. The stories emanating from Gujarat are no different from the ones which are associated with the tremors in Latur and Uttarkashi or the gas tragedy in Bhopal. On the one hand is the magnificent response of the ordinary people in India, as also the global community, to the worst earthquake in living memory to have visited India. On the other hand are disturbing tales of official apathy in coordinating the rescue and rehabilitation operation of which every Indian wants to be a part. However, individual volunteers and members of international agencies were reported to be literally running from pillar to post to find out from clueless officials about devastated regions where help had yet not reached nearly a week after the earthquake. For instance, Vondh, where 10,000 people are feared to have perished in the earthquake, did not receive help from any quarter for nearly 100 hours — more than four days — after the tragedy. A team of experts from France, accompanied by dogs which are trained to sniff out the living and carrying gadgets which serve the same purpose, remained unattended for nearly 36 hours after their arrival in India.

Precious time was lost in Ahmedabad in arranging transport for the team and the three truck-loads of equipment they had put together in no time in Paris for the emergency. When they finally reached Vondh neither the trained dogs nor the sophisticated gadgets brought them news of possible survivors. Should the earthquake be held responsible for the high rate of deaths in Vondh or the missing official machinery which failed to guide the rescue teams to destinations still in need of help? Of course, Gujarat Chief Secretary L. N. S. Mukundan did not forget his “bundgalla” for receiving the Prime Minister at the scene of death and destruction caused by a spiteful nature within a matter of a few seconds. There are countless villages in Kutch which are still waiting for help and yet an insensitive system continues to accord higher priority to the visits by VIPs than to the more urgent task of looking for survivors and providing food and medicine to those being brought to make-shift shelters. The French team’s departure to Vondh was delayed because no flights were allowed over Kutch during Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit. Teams of doctors from Mumbai, Chennai and elsewhere have had to return from the scene of devastation because there was no one to guide them to villages and hamlets in need of medical help. Similar stories of official apathy were reported from Orissa when the super cyclone caused damage of mind-boggling proportions in virtually the entire state. Bhopal, the scene of the worst industrial disaster in the world, continues to suffer even today because of what can be called disaster mismanagement. Passing the buck for the gross dereliction of duty in providing timely help to the victims of the Gujarat earthquake will not do. The first who should be rapped on the knuckles are the members of the Central Crisis Management Committee, comprising top bureaucrats, who got together at 3 p.m. for discussing the calamity which befell Gujarat minutes before the President arrived at Rajpath for taking the salute at the Republic Day parade. Yes, Mr Fernandes the toll may exceed one lakh if the system continues to be as insensitive and irresponsive to the tragedy in Gujarat.

DAVOS, synonymous with the annual meetings of the elitist World Economic Forum (WEF), is on a slight decline. Even noisy protest by non-governmental organisations is not of any help in restoring to it its past glory. In a manner of speaking, it owes its loss of importance to its string of earlier successes. It was, and still is, in the forefront of the campaign for free trade and unfettered flow of capital. The 1997 East Asian crisis and persisting protectionism in the rich countries have exposed the ugly spots in this process. The stubborn refusal of the developed world to redeem the pledges it made during the Uruguay Round of negotiations even five years of the birth of the World Trade Organisation has added to it. From the speeches delivered this year, it is clear that reform fatigue has set in and every one wants a greater share of the benefits before conceding anything to others. This is particularly true of the rich countries which complain that they are facing an economic slowdown and hence cannot extend more concessions. As one newspaper has pointed out, media interest in the annual refresher course for the laggards in the Third World is waning. US and British newspapers which until last year deployed a strong team of reporters and analysts and devoted one full page to the speeches have scaled down the coverage this year. BBC and CNN treated this hardy annual like any other world meet.

At one time countries like India sent a high-powered delegation headed by the Prime Minister. Not this year. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha led the contingent which included Chief Ministers Digvijay Singh and Chandrababu Naidu and several leading lights of CII. One liberal newspaper wondered whether it was necessary at all for the states to collect good conduct certificates from the WEF and attach them to their applications for loan from the World Bank. Only one economic newspaper sent its editor to Davos; others just ignored it. The waning interest is understandable. Every year there is a CII-WEF summit in Delhi and since it is focused on the issues that concern this country, it has taken the place of a more general one at Davos. Anyway the Alpine resort town does not offer much by way tourist attraction.

Even so committed a reformist as Mr Sinha bitterly attacked the policies of the West in two respects. Protectionism is alive and kicking in both the USA and European Union. They have erected several legal barriers, most of them in violation of the spirit of the WTO, and invoke them unilaterally to shut out imports from the developing countries. The immigration laws bar all except the best and the brightest from the Third World. Globalisation has not touched movement of workers except for the periodic charge that the poor segment of the world exploits child and prison labour and pays its workers hideously low wages. One delegate sought to expose the unfairness of the West by giving the example of China. Three-fifths of China’s imports are duty-free and the maximum import duty is only 15 per cent and excise duty is a mere 4 per cent.

This is as close as a nation can get to ideal open trade. But fully one half of all the anti-dumping cases the West initiates is against China. Brazil brings out how the USA and the EU keep it poor. It has 90 million hectares of fertile land which can be turned into cropland but the unreasonably high subsidies the two offer forces the country to keep it fallow. There is no export market. At the end of it all, the WEF stands out as the exclusive club of the multinational corporations with full-throated sympathy of their respective governments setting the agenda of such crucial multilateral organisations as the World Bank and WTO. This is the flip side of globalisation. And to think that this year’s Davos theme was “bridge the gap”! There was not even an attempt to identify the bridge, let alone ways to bridge the gap.

WHEN the country is trying to cope with the worst and the most devastating earthquake in half a century as best it can, it is hardly the time for finger pointing. Nor is this the purpose of what follows. Attention must focus unswervingly on immediate relief to and speedy rehabilitation of such victims of the catastrophe as have survived. All of them are traumatised by extensive deaths of dear and near ones. A staggeringly large number have been rendered homeless. Even those whose homes have been reduced to rubble are forced to sleep in the open in freezing cold because of several hundred after-shocks. Nothing could have been more benumbing. Disposal of the bodies, amidst understandable fears of epidemics, is itself a daunting task. The brave bands engaged in picking up the pieces and offering some solace and succour to the sufferers deserve the nation’s total support, mobilised, to use a cliche, on a warfooting.

Let me also add that no government anywhere in the world can be blamed for not having a contingency plan for an earthquake measuring 7.9 points on the Richter scale. Disasters of such magnitude are rare, though it is not yet clear why the original reports spoke of only 6.9 points. Even so, it is necessary and hopefully useful to draw attention to some glaring gaps in the response to the ravaging tragedy when it struck, sadly minutes before the start of the Republic Day parade in New Delhi.

Official media informed the country, in a tone that had a touch of crowing about it, that the Cabinet Secretary held a meeting of the Centre’s Crisis Management Committee (CMC) — consisting of top bureaucrats and technocrats — at 3 p.m. Instead of being pleased about it, all concerned ought to be ashamed. The worthy members of the committee ought to have quietly left the parade and buckled down to their primary responsibility without losing a single second. The deplorable delay on their part only underscores that no lessons were learnt from the similar dithering at the time of the hijacking of the IC-814 13 months ago.

Then also it had taken several hours for the CMC to assemble. To compound this failing, official spokespersons trotted out the excuse that “it took time” to inform all the members of the committee who were busy in various parts of the city. In heaven’s name what are the cellular phones that the taxpayer provides to every official above a certain rank meant for? Indeed, why should it be necessary to summon the CMC members at all? At the first hint of a major crisis like the one that has overtaken the country they must automatically head for the pre-arranged spot, usually the Cabinet Secretary’s office. This happens, as a matter of course, in all countries where governance hasn’t deteriorated to the extent it has here. Reaction time in New Delhi to the super-cyclone in Orissa was equally long. It chills the blood to contemplate what might happen if there is a similar lackadaisical approach to, God forbid, a nuclear threat to this country.

That the Union Cabinet met another two hours after the CMC did also convey something. Maybe, this had something to do with the traditional Republic Day reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan that could surely have been circumvented. But too much need not be made of this. However, it was with commendable speed that the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, left for the scene of savage destruction, cancelling some important engagements in the Capital. There he has stayed supervising the relief work in which the armed forces are playing the principal and sterling role.

The Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, was also quick to get to Gujarat, if only because Gandhinagar, the state’s capital, is his constituency. The tongue-lashing he received from the almost literally shattered people should be an object lesson for him and his colleagues. One of the major complaints of the surviving sufferers was about the utter lack of information. All communications had evidently broken down and nobody seemed in charge.

This is an even more dangerous state of affairs than governmental dilatoriness, and unfortunately it hasn’t occurred for the first time. There was a similar and total breakdown of communications between Bhuba-neswar and any other place in the country, including the national Capital, during the horrific cyclone. India is legitimately proud of being a “software superpower”. It has more information technology wizards than most other countries. But apparently their services are available only to the USA and Germany. It is time to ensure that a foolproof arrangement to keep at least some communications alive even amidst worst of disasters is an integral part of a permanent setup, always in a state of readiness, to cope with the all too frequent tragedies, both natural and man-made.

During the days following the heart-rending tragedy in Gujarat, I have been attending a seminar on security. During it, a retired commodore of the Navy gave a graphic and blood-chilling account of what can happen to a country that, in the current information age, cannot protect and preserve its information infrastructure and communication network. When two schoolboys in the Philippines can hack into the Pentagon’s computer network, is it any surprise that the best way to defeat an adversary “without firing a single shot” is to “disable, damage and destroy” its communication system through the cyber war?

There are other critical deficiencies in our capability to cope with horrendous natural disasters. These are of a long standing, about which nothing seems to have been done despite bitter experience. A quarter of a century has elapsed since the terrible tragedy at Chasnala, a Bihar coalmine in which hundreds were trapped after it had collapsed because of massive inundation. The country did not have pumps large enough and strong enough to draw the water out. Heavy-duty pumps had to be flown in from the former Soviet Union, and this naturally took time.

A lot more heartbreaking is the discovery that equipment to detect whether or not human beings are trapped under heavy stones and mortar is just not available even in this day and age. It does not cost very much. The only problem seems to be that nobody ever bothered to anticipate its requirement. There is an acute shortage also of the machinery needed to cut heavy stone used in high-rise buildings dotting even small towns.

Every TV viewer has watched hapless people using primitive implements to hack at enormously large stone slabs. The military has since flown in cranes and other equipment.

The worst and the most lamentable is the shortage of mobile surgical hospitals. At Bhuj, where the city, including its solitary hospital, has been almost completely obliterated, the Army did muster a makeshift, open-air mobile hospital.

Col Gautam Lahiri, an army doctor who conducted 50 operations on injured survivors in a matter of hours, had a curious experience. Rather than allow him to continue his work, grief-stricken people physically dragged him from one spot to another, demanding that he should attend to their injured relatives first! Since every brigade has a mobile hospital, more should have been mobilised.

A 300-bed mobile surgical hospital is being flown to Bhuju from Europe by the Red Cross which only underlines the need for foreign assistance in this dark hour. The government’s pithy announcement that it would need $1.5 billion from overseas to meet the challenge of the mega-quake is even more revealing. Evidently, our claim to self-sufficiency in disaster management is unsustainable.

In addition to tangible shortages and problems several intangible also have to be overcome. The danger of partisan politics complicating the relief work is real, if the experience during the Orissa cyclone is anything to go by.

Bureaucratic file
push Of shaking earth and souls in slumbeing cannot be permitted to become a substitute for work on the ground. Above all, no one should forget that the Oriya victims of the cyclone and even the sufferers from the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 have not yet been fully compensated or rehabilitated. This shameful history must not be allowed to repeat itself now or ever again.

HAVING landed in the metropolis called the Babus’ Dilli from my home state about six months back, I had been longing to befriend or at least know each and every person who I was sharing my roof, floor, walls, stairs, corridors, travel-car lifts,
etc. I wished to acquaint myself with the people I have been living with but they could only be seen shut up in their closets, soon after their appearance in the doors and windows once in a while, quite bereft of all interactions, exchange of gestures of human coexistence, discharge of the humane emotions and feelings.

Divali came, Christmas came, Id came and came the New Year Eve but we the residents of the Pragati Vihar Hostel, in the heart of the country’s capital, never saw, nay, knew each other, save for one fine morning till the building that housed us all, shook and shattered driving us out of our “cells” exclaiming, enquiring, confirming, announcing-“An earthquake…,;:!?” It was only afterwards that we came to know that the earthquake fury was disastrous in a part of our country.

Living in the cemented structures, even during a very short stay, I had witnessed no cementing of our social ties and no ice breaking, when, thanks to the seismological shaking at least we behaved the way human beings are expected to behave, maybe in distress only.

As we were preparing ourselves to watch the Republic Day Parade on the television, I felt as if the bed was swinging. I looked towards my wife who, ignorant of the earthquake, was stirring sugar in her cup of tea. For once, I thought it was due to the stirring that the bed was shaking but no, even the fan, with no “provocation” during the ensuing winters and as if a pigeon had just flown from it appeared to be oscillating very leisurely.

“It could only be an earthquake,” I shouted a la the sailor who noticed the iceberg in Titanic and headed towards the balcony. One by one the doors and windows of our adjoining flats in all blocks started opening with the inmates looking apprehensive and alarmed but still needing to confirm before they finally set out for safe open space. From a distance each one of us sought information through glances only. Such a scene had never taken place during the recent past.

I shouted to wife: “It’s an earthquake, darling!” and she summoned me to the room to be near her as if I could stop even the earthquake from taking place as I am notorious for taking good care of the house quakes, if that be the right coinage. She could hardly slip into her sneakers when we moved out to join the train of the panicked men, women and children; some excited, some frightened, some invoking Gods and I, remembering my children. “Why the hell, after all, they preferred to have a night out today only, at a friend’s place.

We climbed down the stairs. I signalled to some others using the cable cars to avoid them. Out in the open, we were all talking to each other for a change. Sharing experiences. What did each one of us feel on the first swing? How was it confirmed? There were grim faces. There were the glowing ones too hiding their fears insidiously. There was excitement writ large on many faces. There was apprehension, another manifestation of the fear of metaphysical, supernatural and the unknown. Those already out in the open did not notice what had happened and were bewildered to see an unusual sight of all the residents being outdoors, at one time. At a time, when we all feared for our existence. At a time when egos, inhibitions, complexes, resolve to make room for fellow feeling among the human beings.

“The earthquake which hit and very badly at that the Bhuj region and killed unknown number of people gave us mild tremors in Delhi, to shake us out of our steel frames into being with our fellow homo sapiens but why it always be so that being co-sufferers of a near-catastrophic predicament only that it should remind us of our being the species who are nature-fed with the milk of human kindness?” was the question I was asking myself while climbing the stairs to reach back my apartment. Yes, apart-meant !

THE heavier a baby is at birth, the bigger the brain power later in life, new research suggests. UK scientists say birth weight may have lasting effects on mental performance, influencing test scores and even educational achievements all the way to early adulthood.

In a study that followed 3,900 men and women born in 1946, investigators found that even among people born within normal weight range, bigger was better in terms of mental test scores during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Low birth weight—less than about 5.5 pounds—has been linked to delayed cognitive development, but little is known about the effect of birth weight in the normal range.

The findings are published in the January 27 issue of the British Medical Journal. Dr. Marcus Richards of the University College London led the study.

Richards and colleagues looked at the study participants’ scores on tests of vocabulary, math and other skills at the ages of 8, 11, 15, 26 and 43. They also considered the participants’ level of education by age 26. The researchers found that up until the age of 26, higher birth weight was related to better test scores. At age 43, birth weight was no longer important.

The link between birth weight and test performance held even when the researchers looked at factors such as parents’ social class and education. In addition, Richards and colleagues found that individuals with higher birth weights also achieved higher educational or training levels.

These findings support earlier research suggesting that birth weight affects cognitive development, regardless of ‘’social background,’’ the authors write. The reasons for the connection are unclear, but the research team notes that birth weight is strongly related to head circumference at birth and, thus, brain size.

In addition, they write, birth weight is associated with certain growth factors that may influence the development of the central nervous system and cognitive ability.
(Reuters)

Calorie-rich meals worsen heartburn

People who suffer from gastroesophogeal reflux disease (GERD) are often warned against fatty food, which is thought to exacerbate heartburn symptoms. But while a low-fat diet has myriad health benefits, it may not necessarily help people with GERD, according to Dr Roberto Penagini, from the University of Milan in Italy.

After a review of several studies on the subject, he concludes that too many calories—not too much fat—is the reason why certain meals upset the stomach. GERD is a chronic condition in which acid from the stomach flows back into the esophagus, causing severe heartburn. GERD has been shown to raise a person’s risk of developing esophageal cancer.

“In light of the present evidence, there is no sound rationale for clinicians recommending that patients with (GERD) follow a low-fat diet,” he writes in a recent issue of the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

While several studies appeared to show an increase in acid reflux after high-fat meals, those meals also were higher in calories than the low-fat meals used as a comparison.

In a recent study, Penagini and colleagues counted episodes of reflux in 13 healthy people and 14 patients with GERD after a high-fat meal in which 52% of calories came from fat, and after a meal in which 24% of calories came from fat. Both meals contained the same total number of calories. He notes that in that study, the fat content did not appear to influence the incidence of GERD.

However, calorie-rich and high-fat meals are often one and the same. A gram of fat contains 9 calories, while a gram of protein or carbohydrate contains only 4 calories. Thus, meals that contain a lot of fat also tend to contain a lot of calories, too.

Penagini concedes that in “everyday life,” fatty meals could “worsen heartburn to some extent.”

Future research is needed to investigate whether the excess calories that high-fat foods confer, or another mechanism, are responsible for this effect.
(Reuters)

Indian paranormal truths

Some scientists study molecules, others study the stars. But Kirti Swaroop Rawat has been studying paranormal experiences for the past 33 years, a science which is devoted to reincarnation and other psychic phenomena.

In the USA to present lectures on the subject at Stanford University and at the Sun Rise Rotary Club in Sunnyvale, Rawat, who has addressed several international conferences, said he would have devoted himself to this field even if he had never been recognised as an authority on the subject. He says it is his calling - "as a drunkard goes to his bottle, I go to my cases."

Indore-based Rawat, 65, considers his research and documentation of more than 200 cases a product of scientific research. "I do not accept anything unless I'm thoroughly convinced there is evidence," says Rawat adding, "I am a researcher and a scientist."

Rawat, who turned to the paranormal early in life hearing stories about his paternal grandfather Ganeshram Rawat, a man said to possess psychic abilities, says his belief in reincarnation isn't the result of him being a Hindu.

He devotes his energies to the International Center for Survival and Reincarnation Researches (ICSRR) in Indore, Madhya Pradesh and has worked with a group of international researchers to investigate and catalogue reported incidents of reincarnation around the world.

Rawat has worked alongside Dr. Ian Stevenson of West Virginia University, who is considered an authority on the study of parapsychology and claims about half of the world believes in reincarnation sans orthodox Muslims, Christians and scientists.
(IANS)

New method of radiation
delivery

A novel method has been devised to treat cancerous tumors in various parts of the body with a higher dose of radiation, while sparing surrounding organs and tissues.

The method, called Intensity Modulated Arc Therapy (IMAT), has proven effective in delivering a higher, more uniform concentration of radiation than conventional radiation therapies.

IMAT, designed by Dr Cedric Yu, director of Medical Physics at the University of Maryland Medical Centre in Baltimore, delivers intensity-controlled radiation beams to cancerous tumors in a rotational manner that allows a higher dose of radiation to get to the cancer. Because the beams are rotated, the surrounding tissues and structures receive only minimal radiation exposure.

“The major question with cancer treatment is always, how do you treat the cancer effectively without hurting the surrounding structures. If someone has cancer next to a structure that cannot take much radiation, then that presents a problem,” says Yu. “With the IMAT method, the radiation rotates around the critical organs while the beam remains fixed on the tumor. This allows a higher concentration of the radiation to be delivered to the tumor while the nearby structures are spared.”
(PTI)

I
see on the one hand the enormous universe and on the other a minuscule man. The present-day thinking is inclined towards the enormous, the aggregate. All things are conceived on a large scale. But the problems of the gigantic universe are the same as those of the individual. What is there in the human body is there in the universe too and vice versa. We become partial and one-sided by being concerned with either the individual or the group. A comprehensive viewpoint dictates that we do not forget the individual while being concerned with the group and be aware of the group while being concerned with the individual.

One of Lord Mahavira's principles is: 'He who knows one, knows all; and he who knows all, alone knows one'. We are at a loss to find solutions to the problems because we do not know even one. It becomes essential to know all other things in order to be able to know an atom. Full knowledge of an atom is not possible without understanding its similarities and dissimilarities and presence or absence of relatedness with all other things. That is why in analysing an atom one comes to know of countless laws of the universe.

These days we are obsessed with extension. We have no liking for concision. The Upanishads declare: 'He who sees manyness is heading for a condition worse than death. Any attempt to know manyness, that is, society without trying to know the one (individual) is truly disastrous.

The problems of the individual can be divided into three classes: 1. physical, 2. social, and 3. mental or spiritual. Economic power or the power of money came to the fore ever since the beginning of civilisation to fulfil the basic needs of life. But the advent of economic or money power gave rise to another problem: robbery, plunder, snatching and looting. The strong started terrorising the weak. State power came into being to solve this problem.

Even state power, which grew to resolve the problems of economic power, could not remain untainted. The need for a moral or religious power was felt to curb the arbitrariness of state power.

However, despite the emergence of these power-centres, individual problems remained. The individual is even today poor and deprived. He is bereft of social cooperation. His awareness is blunted. What is the cause? The power centres created for solving individual problems have themselves become problems. I recall a tale contained in the Puranas. A mouse performed penance and earned the blessings of Lord Shiva and became a cat. He did so out of the fear of cats but still the fear of dogs remained. Through successive courses of penance he kept changing from cat to dog to leopard to tiger and finally to man. One day Lord Shiva asked him, 'Are you now free from all fears?' He replied, "Even by becoming man my problems are not over, for I am suffering from fear of death. May I, therefore, be favoured and turned into a mouse again. Lord Shiva once again blessed them and he returned to his original form of a mouse.

Modern man should also be thinking of reverting to his primitive state, because in his case too all new solutions have turned into problems. Take the case of money. It was intended to solve a major problem but today it has become one of the greatest problems. At one place we find tons of money, and at another place people are crying in agonising penury. Money is less a means of fulfilling human needs and more a status symbol. State power, originally intended to provide order and security, finds itself incapable of doing so, since it has lost internal discipline. Religious power, capable of inspiring state power to practise internal discipline, is itself embroiled in its own affairs. Religion no longer has internal strength. It has become an instrument of state power. There could be no greater contrast than that between the illustrious character of religion in the past and its lacklustre present-day form. It has come about because people have reduced religion to mere rituals. Is it graceful that religion should seek the protection of state power? It is truly a case of glowing fire being covered with ash.

In its radiant form, religion stands for unity and harmony. We are witnessing a new thinking at present, which can even root out religion. People wonder whether religious worship practised for thousands of years has succeeded in solving human problems. They have in fact come to believe that there has been no success at all. I am afraid I cannot agree with them. Even then I shall not try to evade their question. Anyone who uses their language can say that religion has failed to solve human problems. People want religion to help you accumulate wealth, cure disease and win legal suits. They would do well to seek the help of a skilled businessman, a doctor or a lawyer. The solutions of problems they seek have no direct relation with religion and yet most people are pursuing this course.

We have cared only for the form and the name of religion. It is one of our weaknesses that our eyes and ears see and hear only external objects. No wonder we give importance only to names and forms.

We do not know how to respect the holy life of an ascetic. We only know how to respect the formal appearance. A Vaishnava does not revere a Jain ascetic and a Jain does not revere a Vaishnava ascetic, the simple reason being our reverence for form and ignorance of type or content. The content gets lost in the blaze of appearance. Our sight is fixed on names and forms; we cannot look beyond them.

It is said that religion was responsible for wars. I have always refuted this contention. Wars were caused not by religion but by its form and name. The soul of religion is unity. No war can be fought without destroying the spirit of religion. The Vedanta propounds the principle that all sentient beings originate from the same source. Jain philosophy also asserts that all sentient beings are alike. Could human beings have fought one another, if the feeling of unity and harmony had been practised by them? Could one individual have exploited another individual? Could one man have hated another? Fighting, exploitation and hatred are thriving on the basis of manyness and discord. One person works tirelessly the whole day and earns some money.

The entire family shares it, but no one complains. A cultured husband does not castigate his wife by telling her that he earns while she sits at home. There is a feeling of unity in the family and so no occasion for complaint arises. Complaining is the outcome of disunity. Does any government employee receive kickbacks from his son? Does a shopkeeper deceive his son? Bribes and deceit are found only where there is no unity.

A feeling of unity and harmony with everyone is the spirit of religion. The greater the identity one feels with others, the more the religiosity one imbibes. We have merely touched the veneer of religion but have never felt its inner core. What we have seen are the crabs, shells and oysters in the sands of the sea beach, not the pearls lying at the bottom of the waters.

The end-result of religious power is purity. It should be coupled with morality. A religious person has his gaze fixed only on the hereafter and rarely on the now and the here. One is afraid of spoiling the hereafter in the absence of religion, but there is no fear that unethical behaviour is bound to spoil the hereafter. People feel remorse and consider the day wasted if they are not able on that day to count the beads on a rosary, but they neither have remorse nor consider day wasted if they indulge in unethical behaviour. This is because they have convinced themselves that a few minutes of religious ritual will purge them of thousands of sins. Today people are suspicious of a religious person because there is no compatibility between his inner being and external behaviour. His fragmented personality is unable to instil goodwill towards others.

The dividing line between the religious and the irreligious, between a believer and a non-believer has disappeared. This should urge the religious people to give serious thought to the matter. I see only one way of strengthening religion — developing a feeling of unity or equality and creating a bond between religion and morality.

O Mother, what a machine (the human body) is this that Thou hast made!

What pranks Thou palest with this toy

Three and a half cubits high!

Hiding Thyself within,

Thou holiest the guiding string;

But the machine, not knowing it,

Still believes it moves by itself.

Whosoever finds Mother remains

a machine no more;

Yet some machines have even bound

The Mother Herself with the string of love.

— Extracted from a famous bhajan of Sri Ramakrishna

***

Victory to Her,

The primordial power,

The seed from which sprouts

The entire creation,

static and kinetic universes,

The eternal, the Incomparable

who is of the nature of

Her own bliss

And who manifests

as a mirror to His(Siva) self.

— Invocation to the Divine Mother

***

Let us become one with that great effulgence who has no attributes of any kind, except of reality, consciousness and bliss, who is radiating from the heart of the Sun and is that power that stirs our minds and who is our blissful refuge; let that Mother who is beyond all attributes save us.

— The Mahamantra,

Sri Gayatri

***

The unmanifested Godhead manifests as Ma or Mother in order to lead man from darkness to light, from bondage to freedom.